I Am Not Esther

by Fleur Beale

  How long would my uncle keep them there? Aunt Naomi couldn’t stay like that forever, she might have the baby. I sneaked a look. They were all still on their knees, and Magdalene was sobbing.

  I went and sat on the verandah in the sun. I could leave. Go to the police.

  I thought about it for a long time. Even walked to the gate. But it wouldn’t work. They didn’t beat me or starve me. I figured praying over me wasn’t a crime that would get me away from them.

  There was no one else I could go to and my uncle was the only person who knew where Mum was.

  Nine o’clock. They still prayed.

  I sat at the end of the hall and, in my head, swore every stinking swear word I could think of. One of the twins came out to go to the toilet, Rebecca, I think. I waited outside the toilet door. She whispered, ‘Run away, if you’re going to. Otherwise we have to stay in there till you come back in. We stayed in there praying for two days before …’ She stopped, then said, ‘Before Christmas.’

  She went back to the study.

  I had nowhere to go. I sat on the verandah hugging my knees and rocking. Mum, come back, I don’t know what to do.

  But there wasn’t any choice. Not now. When school started, I could talk to somebody. Make friends. Find somebody to run away to.

  Until then I would have to be a Godly child called Esther who wore horrible clothes, who didn’t swear or take the name of the Lord in vain and God knows what else.

  I went back to the study. I stood outside the door. I don’t want to do this.

  I listened to the droning of my uncle. Praise the Lord. Magdalene hiccupped. The poor kid was only five! I could see her through the gap in the door, kneeling all by herself, tears tracking down her face. It made me angry and because of that I grabbed hold of enough courage to go back in.

  I took a deep breath, pulled the door wide and stalked into the room. I knelt down on the hard floor and clamped my mouth and my eyes shut so that I wouldn’t yell and I couldn’t cry.

  Magdalene gasped and sobbed harder. There was a stirring and almost a sighing, but nobody picked her up or put an arm round her.

  I hate them. I hate them all, God damn them all to hell. Except Magdalene.

  I reckon it was another half hour before Uncle Caleb let up. By then my knees were numb and I was raging mad, which was better than wanting to howl my eyes out.

  Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

  There was a sighing round the room and they stood up. I sat back on my heels and watched Aunt Naomi shut her eyes for a second and rub her back.

  It’s not my fault, you stupid cow.

  Uncle Caleb eyed me sternly. ‘Get to your feet, Esther. Never grieve the Lord again with your blasphemy or your disobedience. You are a child of God. Go and change your clothes.’

  My knees hurt. I lifted my head. ‘My name is Kirby,’ I said. ‘I am not Esther.’

  Magdalene gave another sob and then slapped her hands over her mouth. I couldn’t stand the way nobody tried to comfort her. I held out my arms. ‘Come along, princess. Come and show me how to get into these funny clothes. I’ve never worn a skirt in my life.’

  She stared at me for three whole seconds before she threw herself into my arms and clung to me as if she was scared I’d vanish into thin air. I hugged her back. I could relate to that feeling.

  Aunt Naomi touched my shoulder. ‘That is kind of you, Esther. But please do not call her princess again. We do not recognise the monarchy.’

  So why doesn’t that surprise me? ‘I am not Esther,’ I said, and carried Magdalene off to the bedroom.

  I plonked her on the desk under the window and picked up the dreary clothes. I clowned around and made her laugh, trying to put the knickers on my head and the skirt round my neck. It was lucky she was there and it was lucky she needed cheering up or I would’ve killed somebody, or broken something or — the really big one — I might have said some naughty words. They actually wore this stuff? I had to wear this stuff too? The knickers were unreal. Big enough to hide a cow in, and the stuff you make kids’ pyjamas out of. I pushed them under my pillow along with the petticoat and singlet. I left the two top buttons of the blouse undone. The skirt didn’t have buttons, it had a slit at each side and tied at the waist with tapes.

  Holy cow. Was that blasphemy? No doubt I’d find out since it’s one of the things I say a lot.

  Magdalene smiled at me and chuckled. She looked happy for a split second. Then she said, ‘Are you going to die too?’

  ‘Not till I’m a hundred and three,’ I said, picking her up and throwing her in the air. ‘Why? Who else died?’

  ‘Miriam.’ She ducked her head into my shoulder and wouldn’t say any more.

  I carried her out to the family room, the heavy material dragging round my knees and ankles. So who was Miriam?

  When had she died? What of?

  I opened my mouth to ask Aunt Naomi, but she got in first. ‘Hang out the washing please Esther, and when you have done that, pick some peas for dinner.’

  Esther. I opened my mouth but Magdalene was staring at me, terrified. I shut it and picked up the cane basket full of wet washing.

  I’d never hung out washing. Our flat didn’t have a clothes line so we used the dryer. Magdalene showed me how to do it. She showed me how to pick peas too. That was after I’d pulled the first plant out by the roots. We ate quite a few and Magdalene giggled a lot. Both those things had to be healthy, I reckoned. I started calling her ‘Maggie’ and she giggled harder.

  It kept me from thinking about Mum.

  Uncle Caleb arrived home at ten past twelve for lunch — which was a revelation. Lunch, I mean, not him arriving home. It started off with grace. Not the ‘bless this bunch as they crunch their lunch’ sort. Oh no, this was full on and serious. Five minutes at least and filled with praise the Lords. Then we sat down.

  I ate a sandwich made from thick slices of homemade bread and filled with home-grown lettuce and tomato. I’d just poured a glass of water when I accidentally let loose another hurricane.

  ‘Who was Miriam?’ I asked.

  Everyone just stopped. I swear there wasn’t a sound in that room, even the clock stopped ticking. I looked around. Uncle Caleb, face tight, grey tinged with red. Aunt Naomi, face hard, lips shut tight. Daniel not looking at anyone, eyes on his plate. Rachel staring at the ceiling. Rebecca, lips pinched shut over a bad taste. Abraham shot a glance at his father, then kept his eyes on the table. Luke and Maggie had their mouths open and their eyes were frightened.

  ‘Leave the table,’ Uncle Caleb snapped.

  ‘Why?’ My voice went high and squeaky. ‘Uncle Caleb, that’s not fair! What have I done wrong?’

  None of my cousins looked at me, except Maggie and she had her hands over her mouth and tears were filling her eyes. ‘Leave the table,’ my uncle repeated in a voice cold enough to freeze over hell.

  I jumped up. ‘No! I won’t!’ I thumped my fist on the snowy white cloth. ‘You’re not fair! First you change my name! Then you make me wear these stinking clothes! And now when I ask something perfectly reasonable you throw a fit!’

  A silence sank over the room, terrible and suffocating. I wanted to run, but I was damned if I’d give him the satisfaction, so I stayed there with my heart hammering its way out of my rib-cage.

  He picked up his knife and fork and put them together in an exactly straight line down the middle of his plate. ‘Miriam was our daughter. She died four weeks ago. Now leave the table. Go to your room and braid your hair in a Godly manner.’

  What did she die of? Where are the photos of her? Why don’t you talk about her? But the questions died on my lips.

  I went slowly to the bedroom. Daniel was seventeen and the twins were twelve. Did she come in the gap between? She’d be my age or perhaps a bit older. Or perhaps she came in the gap between Maggie and the new baby. Why wouldn’t they talk about her? I’d make them, it wasn’t good to keep things bottled up. Then I remembered Mum. My darling mother who t
old me everything — except the things she didn’t want me to know. She had grown up in this weird faith.

  I shook my head. Don’t think about her. I shut out, too, the feelings spiralling round — hurt, loneliness. Hot, raging fury.

  Aunt Naomi came in after about ten minutes. ‘I’m sorry about Miriam,’ I said, not because I was trying to find out anything, but because I was sorry.

  She picked up my hair brush. ‘We do not talk about her,’ was all she said and then she attacked my hair like it was a poisonous snake. She yanked it back and then plaited it into the tightest plait in the world. I let her do it, then I hauled the band off it and ran my fingers through it to undo it. ‘I don’t wear my hair like that.’

  She slapped the brush back in my hand. ‘Fix it. Then you can take the little ones to the park for the afternoon.’

  Get out of this house for a few hours? Yes! I plaited my hair and went to get Abraham, Luke and Maggie. Maggie had a scarf over her hair. Aunt Naomi handed me one as well. ‘Women of our faith wear their hair covered in public.’

  I took the scarf. I covered my hair with it. ‘Where’s the park?’

  She told me. Weird, I didn’t even know which part of the country I was in. I asked her. Wanganui.

  The twins were helping Aunt Naomi bottle plums and watched us as we walked out the door. Daniel had gone back to work with Uncle Caleb.

  The day was hot. I took off the scarf and undid my hair the second we turned the corner away from the house. ‘Miriam never did that,’ Abraham said, then stopped in a hurry. So Miriam must’ve been old enough to take them to the park. She must’ve been in the Daniel/twins gap. About my age or maybe a bit older.

  I touched Abraham’s shoulder to get him moving again. ‘I’m sorry Miriam died. Was she nice?’

  But they wouldn’t talk about her, not even Abraham with his bold eyes. Maggie’s hand crept into mine. ‘She used to tell me stories,’ she whispered.

  We got to the park. There was a fountain, all cool and splashing. I took off the god-awful shoes and socks and sat on the edge, my feet in the water.

  ‘We’re not allowed to do that,’ Luke said, his hand splashing at the water.

  ‘So don’t then.’

  The pair of them stared at me, then Abraham let out a yell and jumped in beside me, emptying half the water over me. Luke, with a scared look over his shoulder, slid in beside him. I pulled Maggie’s shoes off and she sat beside me, swinging her feet in the water. I’d probably get prayed over when I got them home. I didn’t care, there was too much on my mind. There had to be a reason for what Mum had done. It wasn’t because she’d stopped loving me. My head knew that even if it wasn’t how I felt. So why?

  I knew so little. She’d left home on her sixteenth birthday. She said she couldn’t stand it any longer. God, could I ever believe that. And she said her father belted them. At least Uncle Caleb didn’t seem to be into physical violence.

  I went over what else I knew of Mum’s life, but there wasn’t much. I was born when she was twenty-six. My father died of leukemia when I was four, but she said the marriage wouldn’t have lasted because he couldn’t stand her dizziness.

  How was I going to survive living with the Pilgrim family for two whole years? I wanted to cry and hide my head in my horrible scarf.

  ‘You will hurt your fingers, Esther,’ Maggie whispered, timidly putting a hand over mine where I’d twisted the scarf tight.

  I glanced at her worried face and took a deep breath. Said something flippant so that she smiled. The boys jumped out of the water and raced over to a climbing frame. Maggie and I sat on, our feet cool in the water. ‘I’m going to find out why she left,’ I murmured. ‘And I’m going to get her back.’

  Maggie stared at me. ‘It’s okay, kiddo,’ I said. ‘I haven’t lost my marbles. Come on, I’ll give you a swing.’

  I suddenly felt better. I wouldn’t just shrug my shoulders and get on with it the way we always did with problems. I would fight. I shoved hard at the swing; they weren’t going to change me.

  We went home and the boys were wet to their skins. Aunt Naomi frowned and lectured me. The boys were sent to change and I had to help cook dinner. I had to make a plum pudding with a sponge top and my aunt didn’t have an electric beater. Rebecca was doing the ironing and Rachel was kneading bread dough. There was an embroidered text on the wall that said, ‘the devil finds work for idle hands’. When Uncle Caleb and Daniel came home, my uncle sat at the kitchen table and asked, ‘Wife, have the children upheld the Rule, this day?’

  Maggie was sitting at the table shelling peas and she whimpered. I grinned at her but my heart was beating faster and that made me mad. I would be me, not some dorky drip called Esther. Aunt Naomi told him how I’d brought the boys home soaking wet.

  He didn’t look at me, just told us all to go to his study. I hoped the dinner would burn. We knelt and I suppose they all shut their eyes, but I didn’t, although I bowed my head so Uncle Caleb couldn’t see my eyes were open.

  I tried not to listen, but couldn’t help it. He went on about how my lack of discipline was a sad lapse and how with the help of the Lord I would learn to uphold the Rule so as not to grieve the Lord. I learned during that session that this stupid rule they kept on about meant you couldn’t do anything a normal kid would do.

  ‘Help our beloved daughter Esther to guard her tongue so that her speech may be seemly. Help her to speak without shortening her words. Help her to be Godly.’

  ‘Praise the Lord.’

  ‘Help our beloved daughter Esther to discipline her thoughts and deeds. Help her to set an example of Godliness and seemliness that the younger children may learn by her example.’

  ‘Praise the Lord.’

  My knees were burning, I clenched my jaw shut and my fingernails dug into the palms of my hands.

  The Lord was going to be busy. He had to help me be modest, unassuming, dutiful, obedient, chaste. He had to help me keep my thoughts on Him. I wasn’t to be selfish and consider my own wishes and desires.

  ‘That is all, family. Go about your duties.’

  ‘Holy cow,’ I breathed.

  Uncle Caleb heard. Down we went for another ten everlasting minutes. My state of mind was not exactly calm, holy or reverent. But I kept my mouth shut. Just as well he couldn’t read my mind.

  The dinner didn’t burn. I reckon Aunt Naomi had it planned so she could leave it while we prayed.

  Mum, why did you abandon me? Why did you turn me into a refugee?

  After dinner and after prayers that night I asked Aunt Naomi, ‘Please, Aunt, could I look at my mother’s luggage?’ She’d only taken two bags to Africa — the rest of them had to be here somewhere. There probably wouldn’t be any clues in her stuff, but it was somewhere to start looking.

  ‘It is nothing to do with me,’ said Aunt Naomi, so I took a deep breath and asked my uncle.

  ‘It is nothing to do with you,’ he said and he was just as closed off and determined as Mum had been when she wouldn’t tell me anything. If I argued with him, he’d probably haul everyone into his study for another prayer session.

  Daniel might tell me something. I managed to ask him when I went out to pick some sweet corn for tea the next afternoon. He was weeding along a row of carrots. ‘Daniel, do you know what happened to Mum’s gear?’

  He sat back on his heels and stared at me. ‘My father does not want you to have it.’

  ‘It isn’t his. And I don’t want to have it. I just want to look through it.’

  He stared at me some more. I’d dumped a weighty problem on him. ‘It is in the garage,’ he said at last. ‘In the cupboard beside the workbench.’

  I could’ve hugged him. ‘Thanks, Daniel!’

  The next problem was, when could I look through it? Aunt Naomi kept me busy all day. She was horrified that I couldn’t cook, or clean a stove, or iron the ghastly blouses properly. Maggie was my constant companion. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d have gone bananas, but she seemed to n
eed me. She grew anxious if I disappeared somewhere and she didn’t know. Miriam. She thought I was going to die like Miriam.

  After worrying the problem around in my head for hours, I came to the conclusion that the only time to look at Mum’s stuff was the middle of the night. I pinched the torch from the laundry while I was folding the daily washing. ‘Mum, you’d be stunned if you could see me now,’ I muttered, folding my spare skirt and blouse, both exactly the same colours as the lot I was wearing.

  That evening I put the littlies to bed. Abraham and Luke bounced and yelled and had a pillow fight. Uncle Caleb stormed in and killed it dead. ‘You will teach them discipline,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Yes, Uncle Caleb.’ An idea hit me. ‘Uncle Caleb … could I read to them? Where are the books?’

  ‘You may read the Bible,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, all right … but other stories, too. Where are they?’ I looked round the room, but the only books were a Bible by each bed.

  ‘We do not believe in stories and novels,’ he said. ‘The word of the Lord is sufficient.’

  So what did they do in their spare time with no television, no radio and no books? Play cards? Strip poker, maybe? I think not.

  I took Maggie into our room and tucked her into bed. ‘Tell me a story,’ she whispered as I hugged her.

  ‘Like Miriam did?’ I asked, and felt her nod. ‘I’ll tell you about my mother, and you tell me about Miriam.’ She nodded again, so I told her about Mum and me dyeing our hair for Christmas and I managed not to cry. ‘Your turn,’ I said.

  She reached up and touched my hair. ‘She had pretty hair. Yellow and straight. Not like yours.’ And that was it, she just turned over then and snuggled down. I went back to tuck the boys in. ‘Tell us a story,’ Abraham whispered, his eyes sparkling.

  ‘Come down here, then,’ I said and moved over so there was room for him beside me on Luke’s bunk. I told them the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff and we all went trip-trap, trip-trap, who’s going over MY bridge? together in a whisper muffled by the blankets. They loved it.